ClearLight Diagnostics and Researchers at the Indiana University's Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center Announce a Collaboration to Profile the Tumor Microenvironment in Patients with Breast Cancer

SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ClearLight Diagnostics, LLC, (ClearLight) a developer of a next generation tissue processing and 3D imaging platform, announced today that it has signed a collaboration agreement with the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center to study the tumor microenvironment in patients with breast cancer. Working with researchers in the Department of Pathology and Clinical Medicine, ClearLight will use the CLARITY method and 3D imaging to map key aspects of the microenvironment of breast cancer tumors. Using CLARITY, the heterogeneity of both the tumor and the tumor microenvironment can be better understood in solid tumors due to the elucidation of 3D spatial information versus analysis by standard 2D, thin section tissue processing methods. Profiling 3D aspects of breast cancer tumor tissue is particularly valuable relative to the analysis of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and their clinical value for patients. Several independent studies have demonstrated that TILs are prognostic in breast cancer, with the potential to demonstrate relevance for response to immune-checkpoint inhibitor therapy. Phenotyping TILs and characterizing the spatial relationships of the vasculature as well as key standard of care tumor biomarkers will create a new knowledge base for capturing the heterogeneity of breast cancer tissue.

"We are very fortunate to be working with a world-class team of investigators who have made practice changing contributions to the field of translational cancer research as well as clinical treatment practice," said Laurie Goodman, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at ClearLight Diagnostics. "This collaboration is key to the advancement of the analytic and eventual clinical development of our platform."

"We are excited to apply this revolutionary technology to a variety of preclinical and clinical models of breast cancer that are important to our clinical research program. These will greatly assist developing novel biomarker based therapies for our patients," said Sunil Badve, MD, Joshua Edwards Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and Director of the Translational Genomics Core.

The collaboration between ClearLight and Indiana University School of Medicine demonstrates a commitment to convert research discovery to clinical application.

ClearLight Diagnostics is a technology development company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of innovative technologies to significantly improve the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of diseases with an initial focus in oncology. Founded by Karl Deisseroth MD, PhD, ClearLight is developing a product platform based on the CLARITY lipid-clearing technique developed by Dr. Deisseroth and colleagues at Stanford University. This technique enables the transformation of tissue into a nanoporous, hydrogel-hybridized form that is crosslinked to a three-dimensional network of hydrophilic polymers. The process produces a fully assembled, intact tissue, which is permeable to macromolecules and optically transparent, thus allowing for robust three-dimensional imaging of subcellular components (DNA, RNA and protein) and heterogeneous cellular interactions within the tumor microenvironment. This technology, paired with the development of a tissue imaging platform that includes the revolutionary microscopy method, COLM (CLARITY Optimized Light-sheet Microscopy) will enable unprecedented depth and acceleration of image collection from lipid-cleared samples interrogated with biomolecules. Visit www.clearlightdx.com.